The Chocolate Effect

Title

The Chocolate Effect on crickets

Problem Scenario

my problem scenario is based on the fact that I was reading an article that said chocolate makes you smarter so I wanted to try it on humans and I couldn't so my science teacher got the idea to use crickets and see if you can train them by feeding them chocolate.

Broad Question

can you train crickets by feeding them chocolate?

Specific Question

Will crickets learn faster by eating chocolate or not?

Hypothesis

I think that the crickets will learn faster by eating chocolate because chocolate is proven to make you smarter?

Graph of hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable:diet of the crickets

Dependent Variable: time through a maze

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

the order
the size of the maze
type of chocolate
the amount they get

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

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General Plan

my general plan is to feed some crickets chocolate and another group of crickets there regular diet and see if that does or does not change the thinking ability of a cricket. before feeding the crickets the chocolate i will send them through a maze with chocolate at the other end and see if they will go to the sent of the chocolate. Then after feeding the chocolate to the crickets i will then send them trhough the maze agian and see if there is any diffrence to the abilty of letting them find the chocolate.
Potential Problems And Solutions
one problem is that I feed the crickets chocolate to see if they would eat it and they all died i'm not sure if they died from eating it or due to the fact that that weren't with me everyday so i could give them fresh food and water everyday. so this time i am keeping them at my house to makes the sure they get water and food everyday.
another problem I might also run into the problem that they will not eat the chocolate. because if they don't it would change my whole experiment. lucky for me they do eat the chocolate. well i think they are eating the chocolate but there is no way to tell if some are and some are not eating the chocolate.
there also maybe a problem when it comes to putting them through the maze. because they might not go through the first time most of all because they are not used to the smell of the chocolate yet. the second time they go through the maze it might work though because they will be used to the smell of the chocolate.
Safety Or Environmental Concerse
The biggest safety concerse is the fact that the crickets will die from eating the chocolae because of whats in the chocolate.

Experimental Design

(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
crickets	36	pet shop	4.50
poster Bored	1	Mr. Biche	5.00
potatoes	4	my house	free
Oats	1	science Room	free
maze	1	my house	free

Procedure

First you will see if the crickets can will actually eat the chocolate and not die from it. Second you will take complete different crickets and before giving them chocolate you will run them through a maze. After you run them through a maze for one or two trials you then, put them in an enclosed area and give them chocolate and leave them in with the chocolate for one day to a week however long you need to to get a proper result. After you are done running the crickets that you will be feeding chocolate you run the group of crickets in which you will not feeding chocolate. then you run both sets of crickets through the maze one by one each crickets and record that time, (if you notice them following the same path as the other ones that usually means that they are following the sent and do prevent that from happening all you need to do is either put wood chips or paper under the path in the maze. And change it for each cricket that goes through the maze.) after you have all the times average them together.

Diagram

Photo List

I will have a photo of the crikets, the maze, and anyother cool things that happens during my experiment.

Time Line

procedure, timeline, photo list. Due- 2/1
begin experiments 2/4
Experiments begin 3/1
Analysis 3/7
Discussion/Background 3/15
wiki complete 3/15
poster complete 3/22
KMS Fair 3/29

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Data Table

cricket # trial 1 trail 2 cricket # trial 1 trial 2
cricket 1- 10 17 cricket 1- 22 47
cricket 2- 30 13 cricket 2 - 11 5
cricket 3- 74 13 cricket 3- 10 4
cricket 4- 17 28 cricket 4- 29 11
cricket 5- 0 8 cricket 5- 5
cricket 6- dnf 3 cricket 6 dnf
(dnf is did not finish)

Average: 22.0183333333333 17.75 15 18 14.4

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Data Analysis

All Raw Data

Graphs

Photos

Results

During this experiment I timed crickets as they went through a maze and the first time i timed them they had not eatin the chocolate yet and the second time they have been around and have ate chocolate for at least one day. As they went through the maze I timed each one and obseved the frist cricket had a little bit of a hard time going through the maze and each one got better because for one I think they where following the sent of the other crickets that they had left behind. they had a average time of about 20 to 30 sec the first time and it averaged out o about 15 when both trials where over. the crickets that did not get any chocolate where about and average of 30 to 50 sec.

Conclusion

Can you train crickets by feeding them chocolate? I except my hypothesis. I except it because from the first time I ran them through they all got higher numbers which in other words means that they took longer and then the second time around they got much lower times. another thing that I observed was that the first cricket took a decent amount of time and as there was more and more crickets run through the maze each one left a sent behind so other crickets just followed their sent to the other end of the maze. so because of them leaving their sent and the other ones following it the crickets I did last took less time to find the chocolate. If I did this experiment again I would probably for one have all the crickets in separate spaces so it was easier and I would put something on the bottom of the maze so they didn't just follow the sent from the other crickets.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

the benefits to the community are sometime in the future they could do the same thing on humans except for you wouldn't send them through a maze you would probably have them take a quiz. Then see if it makes them smarter this might make it so all kids in every school can eat chocolate to make them smarter.

Dissussion

some of the trends from my data showed that each cricket that went through the maze left their sent so after eachone had gone through the sent got left behind and the time it took for the crickets got less and less. The relation between my independent and dependent varriable is very strong because if they hadnt eatin the chocoolate we probably wouldn't have seen the diffrence in time from before to after they ate the chocolate. Yes I was able to answer my experiment question and it does make them smarter from what I saw from working with them. My experiement did have some problems. one of the problems I had was getting the crickets from their home to the maze because for one I dont like to touch the crickets and two they just wanted to escape. One way my experiment could be changed and advanced is putting something on the bottom of the maze so they dont follow the sent of the other ones. another thing that could be changed s mabe having a diffrent area for each cricket so instead of having an avaerage for all the crickets you could hvae a time for each cricket.

Background Research

References

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419731/
http://m.chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/suppl_1/i299.full
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/205/10/1429.full.pdf
http://www.biosci.missouri.edu/gerhardt/pdfs/feeder%20insect%20husbandry.pdf

Abstracts

In my experiement I was trying to find out weather or not chcolate makes cricket smarter. I had planned on feeding them chocolate for about a week or more but for some reason well I think the crickents died from eating the chocolate because of whats in the chocolate. Anyways since I was unable to keep them alive for no more then two days I only fed the crickets chocolate for one day and then did my final test on them to avaerage the time it took them. I think the hardest part about my experiment was getting them from their little home into the maze. Mostly because I dont like touching them which is why I probably would not do this experiment agian for the reason and it was hard to keep them all alive for no more than 2 days.